Americanisms impact on cultural integrity?

Question

To what degree does the Pax Americana endanger the individuality and unique qualities of various cultures worldwide?
Is it a danger to cultural diversity?

Answer 1

It's easily forgotton that Americanism is as much a product of the world as it is the source of influence. Some believe that the world is in the process of convergence due to the ever so hyped connectivity and increased communication between us all and our more economically and geographically distant global sisters and brothers that were previously invisable to us.
One view would hold that American's culture is spread because less economically viable cultures are lured to conform thanks to material incentive. Other views say that American media and movies promote American culture, and its sheer enormous volume displaces indigenous cultures worldwide.
These grim views are of the convergent school of thought. However, not to despair if you you fear a global mob of standardized materialistc zombies marching across the planet. There are also tendencies for cultures to diverge.
While we are all increasingly able to access similar media, we are also increasingly able to choose from a larger offering of information. So, if you and people like you reject the focus of "mainstream" of whatever society you are supposed to be embedded in, you can more easliy do so.
Your question, is about cultures, which is on a group level rather than individual. So, what if American culture threatens people's concept of themselves as a group and encourages them to see themselve only as an individual. This would make people within a culture fragment and diverge from each other. Becoming only one constituent of a slurry of people each struggling to be different and unique. US culture has been criticized as being like this. This is a possibility in other cultures and has been looked at in management, political science, sociology and psychology lit. Yet, many groups of people reject American individuality and have done so for decades. For instance Ho Chi Minh and Mao suggested that the greatest threat to society was individualism. While Americans tended to reject French culture in 2002, the French and other European peoples were diverging from what they percieved as Americanism. Chinese, Vietnamese, Russian and Indian nationals also seemed to intentionally set courses away from US like cultural influences. As said earlier, American culture is as much about what people want to be in the culture as what they don't like about other cultures.

So, the cultures will evolve as they always do-both converging and diverging along aspects that the people embedded within see valuable.

Sorry for the length.

Answer 2

americanism seems to breed apathy. we care only for fueling our cars rather than to think about the mothers overseas who are crying for their sons. we are killing everyone and everything that is different. even the vice president shot someone in the face. if I shoot someone in the face, it wouldn't matter if it was an accident or not. Also, why are we at war in Iraq? 9-11 had nothing to do with iraq.....

Answer 3

Americanism is a cultural cancer which seems to be infecting the whole world